Hardcore Internet culture is having a critical moment. In short, the battles that have been waged in the last week will ultimately help our wider connected culture both expose and figure out the principles that we hold to be true and valid, especially those concerning the role of women. When these moments come up, I take great interest: they are both sociological studies and opportunities to shape future behavior. If we can tease this out thoughtfully, it ends up being similar a court case in law: we lay the groundwork by which others can work from, and we also paint a picture by which we can be judged. In the end, we will be asked, "Have we done everything we can to make sure good things come out of this?"

Some bullet points of context.

Reddit is a popular social networking service with a demographic that skews heavily male, white, nerdy. It adheres to principles of free speech and open platform, which means that there are lots of things shared that are on the up and up, and also lots of seedy, hateful things shared.

One of the seedier things shared was in a forum called r/creepshots. Creepshots are photos taken of women in public, but without their knowledge or consent, and shared based on titillation of that non-consent.

A woman who was fed up with creepshots started collecting publicly available information about people posting creepshots and sharing it in consolidated identifying posts on a blog called Predditors. Jezebel, owned by Gawker Media, wrote about this. A flame war ensued between Reddit and Gawker. The Jezebel writer, Adrian Chen, has long-standing beef with Reddit, which caused the flames to burn brighter.

Chen published an expose, based on investigation and a confirmation of identity via phone, of one of Reddit's most notorious trolls, Violentacrez-- a moderator of subreddits promoting racism, misogyny and more. His offline identity is revealed, along with details about his family and wife. Violentacrez loses his job.

Reddit moderators who are not involved in the creepier corners of the site are scared that they, too, will have their identities and personal information revealed by any disgruntled user.

All Internet hell continues to break lose.

I've been working on this follow-up since Friday, but at every turn in writing it, I've been sent down another rabbit hole of Internet culture's morals and ethics. Instead of taking another few weeks to explore each one, what I hope to accomplish here is to create a space where a nuanced discussion of both the principles at stake, and their real-world implications. Thus, I'm dividing this post up in 3 subsections: Accountability Journalism on the Internet, Anonymity Is to Blame, and The Role of Reddit and Services Like It.

ACCOUNTABILITY JOURNALISM ON THE INTERNET: IS DOXXING A LEGITIMATE RESPONSE?

When I first encountered the Predditors blog, my eyeballs popped out of my head. Since the information gathered there was provided online publicly by the owners of these identities, and not obtained through scurrilous means, it seems absolutely a way to finally hold people accountable for exploiting women in unacceptable ways. [This collecting and sharing of public identity information is called "doxxing."] Deep down, I don't believe in revenge or retribution for bad behavior. I believe in creating paths for karma to do its work, and leaving it up to karma. This seemed like one of those places that was creating the pathway for karma to do its work. I still stand by that in this case.

However, I have also spent time with some very good people who have been doxxed-- there were strings of incidents several years ago where feminist websites were being targeted by roving groups of 4chan and Anonymous members. Members of the mob, for example, were encouraged to send oodles of pizza to one blogger's house (she had thankfully moved from the address they supposedly were sending the pizzas to); they dug around and even found credit card numbers, which lies outside the normal purview of doxxing, since that info isn't easily, publicly acquired. Sometimes the doxxing of political bloggers happens just for the lulz. Often, it's part of an overall misogynist tone that's found online.

Doxxing is used to find people abusing animals, and to expose political dissidents who are rounded up and never heard from again. In the case of Reddit, there are the moderators who fear being doxxed for minor infractions; I spoke with one moderator on the condition of anonymity this weekend who is gay, but can't be out in his geographic community. (He asked me to use the pseudonym "Henry Janeway.") If he gets doxxed for banning a user from his subreddit, his life may be in danger. So culturally, when do we get to say that this is an OK tool to use against people we find reprehensible? Who gets to define "reprehensible?"

I'm reminded of a discussion that I and many folks in the technology and activism arena had about legitimate civil disobedience online. In that discussion, we were trying to tease out whether taking down a website that had acted inappropriately was fair game in an activist's toolbox. Many say no; I still feel that these tools (including doxxing) could be useful tools for oppressed folks to use against the powerful and influential. But I am uncomfortable with deciding who gets to say who's oppressed, and who is powerful. Should we have Geneva conventions on acceptable Internet weapons?

ANONYMITY ON THE INTERNET IS TO BLAME.

A widespread conclusion from this debate is that anonymity on the Internet is to blame for all of this bad behavior. Removed from having their names and reputations affected, people will participate in the most vile activities they can find. Removing anonymity will prevent forums like creepshots from being populated heavily.

Where to start with this?

First, anonymity does create a certain amount of freedom. I wrote about trolling and flaming a few weeks ago, and it's worth revisiting those points with regards to preventing bad behavior. One of the studies I cited showed that people in certain cases actually don't act any better when their true identities are attached to their behavior online. Anecdotally, we assume that people won't post creepshots if their true identities are used. I'm not sure that's entirely true, because I also think that the people posting in those forums don't see anything wrong with their entitlement to women's bodies.